Lindsey v. Stuart

317 S.W.2d 796, 1958 Tex. App. LEXIS 2310
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedOctober 30, 1958
DocketNo. 6182
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 317 S.W.2d 796 (Lindsey v. Stuart) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lindsey v. Stuart, 317 S.W.2d 796, 1958 Tex. App. LEXIS 2310 (Tex. Ct. App. 1958).

Opinion

ANDERSON, Justice.

Mrs. Stuart, the appellee, a resident of Angelina County, filed suit in the district court of Orange County against four residents of Jasper County: B. G. Lindsey and wife, Mattie E. Lindsey, and Fred Davis and wife, Mary Nell Davis. The defendants having filed a joint plea of privilege seeking transfer of the case to Jasper County, the plaintiff filed a controverting plea in which she set up that her suit is for the recovery of land and to remove incumbrances upon the title to land, that a part of the land in suit is situatéd in Orange County, and that therefore the suit is maintainable in Orange County under Subdivision 14 of Article 1995, Vernon’s Texas Civil Statutes. The defendants’ plea of privilege was overruled and they have appealed.

An essential purpose of the suit is to cancel six deeds: three that were executed by the plaintiff herself, and three that were executed in plaintiff’s name by defendant B. G. Lindsey, who held a power of attorney from plaintiff. However, in addition to the allegations that are relied upon for cancellation, plaintiff’s petition contains a count in form of trespass to try title.

Mary Nell Beall and husband, Royce Milton Beall, were named as grantees in each of the three deeds that the plaintiff herself executed. Defendant Mattie E. Lindsey was named as grantee in each of the three her husband executed in plaintiff’s name.

Undivided interests in non-contiguous tracts of land in three counties (Orange, Jasper and Newton) were ostensibly conveyed by the six deeds, but land in different counties was not conveyed by any one deed. In other words, one of the deeds to the Bealls purported to convey land in Orange County, another purported to convey land in Jasper County, and the third purported to convey land Newton County, but no one deed purported to convey land in two or mote of the three counties. And the same is true of the deeds to Mrs. Lindsey.

The same tracts of land that were dealt with in the deeds to the Bealls were also dealt with in the deeds to Mrs. Lindsey, half of the plaintiff’s undivided interests in the various tracts having been ostensibly conveyed to the Bealls and half to Mrs. Lindsey.

Defendant B. G. Lindsey is alleged by plaintiff to have acted in bad faith, to have breached his trust, and to have exceeded his authority in making the deeds to his wife. He is also alleged by plaintiff to have induced her to execute the deeds to the Bealls and to have done so by misrepresentations, etc.

The Bealls were divorced after they had received the three deeds that were made to them, and Mr. Beall conveyed to Mrs. Beall all of his interest in the lands covered by the deeds. Mrs. Beall subsequently married defendant Fred Davis and is herself the defendant Mary Nell Davis. She is alleged by plaintiff to be an adopted daughter of defendant B. G. Lindsey.

To show common source of title and to prove such venue facts as the deeds were competent to prove, the plaintiff introduced in evidence during the hearing the deeds by which she had herself acquired title to undivided interests in the various tracts of land that are in litigation and also the six deeds she seeks to cancel and the deed from Royce Milton Beall to his wife. In addition, she placed in evidence her petition, her controverting plea, and excerpts from defendant B. G. Lindsey’s deposition. Defendant Lindsey had testified in his deposition that some of the tracts of land in suit are situated in Orange County.

[798]*798The deeds that the plaintiff introduced reflected that sundry tracts of land in different surveys are involved, but the defendants nevertheless offered additional evidence to show that the chains of title to the lands in the different counties are, for the most part, unrelated and that neither the land in Newton County nor the land in Jasper County adjoins any part of the land in Orange County.

Subdivision 14 of Article 1995, supra, is as follows:

“Suits for the recovery of lands or damages thereto', or to remove incum-brances upon the title to land, or to quiet the title to land, or to prevent or stay waste on lands, must be brought in the county in which the land, or a part thereof, may lie.”

And when such subdivision is relied upon to confer venue, it is not necessary at a hearing on the plea of privilege that a plaintiff prima facie prove his title. It is only necessary that his petition show on its face that the suit is one for the recovery of lands or damages thereto, or to remove incumbrances upon the title to land, or to quiet the title to land, or to prevent or stay waste on lands, and that proof be made that the land involved, or a part thereof, lies in the county of suit. Cowden v. Cowden, 143 Tex. 446, 186 S.W.2d 69. However, it seems that where, as here, separate tracts of land in different counties are involved, venue in the county where one of the tracts is situated can be maintained as to the other tract or tracts only in special circumstances. The general rules applicable to such a situation are thus set out in 43 B Tex.Jur. 144, Venue, Sec. 28:

“Generally, as against pleas of privilege, venue lies in each county only as to lands located in that county. And the fact that the plaintiff relies on the same facts for the recovery of several tracts in different counties does not entitle him, as against pleas of privilege, to sue for all the tracts in a county where one of them is situated. But where the rights of all parties are identical in two or more tracts of land, venue may be sustained in the county in which one of the tracts is located, although the other tracts are situated in other counties.”

Appellee contends, of course, that the case at bar is governed by the rule as stated in the last sentence of the quotation.

Appellants, on the other hand, contend that that rule is applicable only in instances in which an adjudication of title to the land that is situated in the county of suit will also determine title to the land that is not so situated; that such a situation can exist with reference to separate tracts of land only in the event that the tracts have descended from the Sovereign under the same chain of title; and that therefore, and since in this instance the tracts of land that are involved are non-contiguous and have descended from the Sovereign under different chains of 'title, the rule can have no application to the case at bar.

Heirs of Tevis v. Armstrong, 71 Tex. 59, 9 S.W. 134, and Boyd v. Hogue, Tex.Civ.App., 224 S.W.2d 301, which are the cases Texas Jurisprudence cites in support of its statement of the rule, supply the basis of appellants’ argument. In the Tevis case, for example, there is this [71 Tex. 59, 9 S.W. 136] :

“The first assignment of error complains of the refusal to sustain the general and special exceptions urged by the defendants to the petition, specially in not striking from the petition so much of it as related to the tract of land lying in Brown county. The authority cited (Martin v. Robinson, 67 Tex. [368], 382, 3 S.W. 550) as construing [the statute], does not apply to a state of facts like those here presented, where the rights of the plaintiffs and of all the defendants are identical in the two tracts. An adjudication upon the ownership of one tract' would necessarily determine the ownership of [799]

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Bluebook (online)
317 S.W.2d 796, 1958 Tex. App. LEXIS 2310, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lindsey-v-stuart-texapp-1958.